The crypto markets experienced an explosion of growth today, April 12, with Bitcoin (BTC) jumping more than $1,000 to break $8,000 over just a 30 minute period, and the rest of the market solidly in the green.
While no specific events have been confirmed as the reason for the sharp price jumps across the board, Twitter users have speculated that the recent news that Bitcoin has been declared compliant with Shariah law – according to a report published online today, April 12 – may have contributed to the spike:
Positive Fud
— Trading Room (@tradingroomapp) April 12, 2018
Additional 1.8 billion people will now be able to buy #bitcoin #bitcoin is declared halal and holy for Islamic Community. Expect a bounce as soon as Saudi Arabia, Qatar & Abudhabi Sovereign Funds enters Crypto Markets ?https://t.co/ZKcdBCkkZ7
BTC is currently trading at around $7,817, up around 14 percent over a 24 hour period.
Cointelegraph contributor Joseph Young tweeted about the abrupt price rise, commenting on the spike as an example of typical Bitcoin behavior:
Welcome to bitcoin pic.twitter.com/v5nuNQb5e2
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) April 12, 2018
Crypto trader and Twitter persona WhalePanda referred to the jump as a “bear trap”:
Nice move by #Bitcoin. Got to love that bear trap. pic.twitter.com/9SrHfJuFvO
— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) April 12, 2018
Ethereum (ETH) also experienced a notable price spike, jumping to around $465 by press time – after a month of hovering around the $400 mark – and is up by more than 12 percent over a 24 hour period.
Total market cap also hit above $300 bln for the first time this month, dropping slightly down again to $297 bln by press time.
Of the top ten coins listed on CoinMarketCap, EOS is still up the most, more than 30 percent over a 24 hour period, and trading at around $8.90 by press time. EOS’s price spike could be attributed to EOSIS’s April 9 pre-release of the Dawn 3.0 Blockchain platform.
Some of the other top ten altcoins have seen high percent growth as well, with 9 of the 10 (including BTC) showing more than 10 percent growth over a 24 hour period. Cardano is up around 22 percent over a 24 hour period, trading for around $0.18; IOTA is up 14 percent, trading for around $1.18; and NEO is up almost 13 percent, trading for around $60.